Happily Ever After?
by jennifer snape
Summary: Harry tells his favourite Slytherin a story.... Will Draco stop butting in long enough for Harry to finish it?


I can't take credit for the idea for this story ) When I was doing my GCSE exams, we read a brilliant short story called 'There Was Once' (I forget the author's name). One character is trying to narrate a story, while the second keeps picking holes in it. The contents of that story are completely different to mine, (no plagiarism!) but I thought the idea was brilliant. And 'There Was Once' is well worth a read if you come across it!

This goes out to Vegas chick, because she gave me the idea to write it!

This story can stand-alone as a one-shot, but when you take away the last line it becomes a prequel to 'Pillow Fight!'

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Happily Ever After?

(Or, 'He Woke Up and it Had All Been a Dream!')

"Tell me a story."

"No."

Harry and Draco were lying on their bed as they often did just after lunch, spending a few precious moments together before their demanding jobs stole them away for the rest of the day.

Draco edged closer towards Harry and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Go on, tell me a story like you used to."

Harry turned to his boyfriend and smiled in amusement. "I didn't think you remembered I used to do that. That must have been ages ago." He wrinkled his forehead in concentration. "In fact, that was when we first got together."

Draco frowned. "Why did you stop?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I remember why."

Draco sniffed. "It's because you're mean."

"It's because you always argued!"

"No I didn't!"

"You're doing it now!"

Draco stared at his boyfriend indignantly. "What did I argue about?"

Green eyes rolled in exasperation. "Everything!" Harry ticked off the list on his fingers. "You always moaned that the beginnings were unoriginal, the endings were predictable, the plots unsustainable, the descriptions woolly -"

Draco pouted. "I wasn't _that_ bad -"

"- the storylines were inconsistent, I never made the characters believable enough -"

"Ok, Ok," Draco protested, silencing Harry with an apologetic hug. "Point taken."

The two nestled together, sinking back into the sheets.

"So tell me a story then."

"Draco -" Harry began, warningly.

"Just one."

"No!"

"_One?_ "

"I'm too old for this -"

"Please?" Draco rested his chin on Harry's chest and peered forlornly up at him.

Harry groaned. He never could resist those eyes. He exhaled loudly. "Once upon a time -"

Draco grinned triumphantly and snuggled against Harry's side, wrapping one arm comfortably around his boyfriend's waist.

Harry continued. " - in a far away land, there lived -"

"Where?"

"What?"

"A far away land where?"

"It doesn't mat -"

"Is it Peru?"

"_What_? "

"The far away land. Is it Peru?"

"Well _I_ don't know -"

"How can you say it's far away then? It might be close by."

"Can't we say that the country has just been discovered and is as yet unnamed?"

"_No."_

Silence. Harry was too tired to argue.

"Once upon a time, in _Peru,_" - he received a small smile from Draco - "there lived a girl. She was best friends with a little boy who lived down the road from her. One day -"

"Do they live in a rainforest?"

"No. One day -"

"Are there any rainforests later on in the story?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I like rainforests."

"Since when do you like _rainforests_?"

"Since you stopped paying attention to what I like," his boyfriend huffed.

Harry sighed. He was very doubtful that Draco even knew what a rainforest _was_.

"Once upon a time, in Peru, in a _rainforest_" - he looked pointedly at Draco - "there lived a girl. She was best friends with a little boy who lived down the road from her. One day -"

"How is there a _road_ in the middle of a rainforest?" the Slytherin asked sceptically.

"Look, it was _you_ who wanted the – _fine_. The road they live on is at the _edge_ of the rainforest, the road having been introduced by developers in a bid to make the transportation of goods to and from the neighbouring village easier."

Draco nodded his approval. Harry thought he'd better continue before Draco had a chance to ask what these 'goods' might be, because he didn't have a clue.

"One day -"

"What are their names?"

"Whose?"

"The little boy and girl."

"It's not important. One day -"

Draco whined. "If you don't give them names, I can't picture them. And later on in the story when you bring in the other characters, how will I know who you're referring to if you just keep saying 'he' and 'she' all the time?"

Harry understood from this that he was expected to produce '_other characters'_. Great.

Harry closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten. He tried to keep his voice as even as possible. "What would _you_ like to call them?"

"Sophie and Gabriel."

Harry smiled to himself. They were the names of Draco's first ever pets.

"Sophie and Gabriel were out one day -"

"Aren't you going to tell me a bit about them first?"

"I _was_ telling you. They were out one day -"

"_No_, I mean their backgrounds."

"Their backgrounds?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "_Backgrounds_. How can I identify with the characters and empathise with their situations if you don't tell me -"

"Fine," Harry huffed. "Gabriel is of Norwegian-Guatemalan descent and likes toast in the mornings, and Sophie is the product of an illegitimate affair that her adoptive family prefer not to enlighten her with the details of."

Draco gave Harry a scathing look. "No need to be sarcastic."

"Can I continue?"

There was an affirmative silence.

"Right, so Sophie and Gabriel were out one day, walking at the bottom of their garden, when they suddenly came across some – er -" Harry thought wildly for a few seconds "- aliens."

"In _Peru?_"

Harry sighed. Even he thought that was a bit far-fetched. He racked his brains for the most likely thing to be found at the bottom of a Peruvian garden but came up with nothing. That was one thing that Hogwarts had definitely not taught him, he mused. He would have to mention that to Hermione the next time he saw her. _Try 'Hogwarts: A History' your way out of that one, Hermione,_ he thought in amusement. Anyway, back to the present situation. His mind completely blank, Harry started the sentence in the hope that an appropriate theme would spring into his head. "Sophie and Gabriel were out one day, walking at the bottom of their garden, when they suddenly came across a – a -" Harry struggled to finish the sentence with something plausible enough for Draco to believe, but easy enough to base a story around.

"- haunted house," he finished lamely.

Draco actually lifted himself up on his elbows to face Harry. "Oh _please -_" he began.

"Don't start, Draco -"

"Isn't that a bit unlikely? All of a sudden there's a 'haunted house' at the bottom of the garden?"

"No."

Draco raised his eyebrows.

"Happens all the time."

"How come they didn't notice it before? Did it just pop up overnight or something?"

Harry gritted his teeth. "Yes."

"So let me get this straight. A fully formed, _haunted_ house just appears out of the middle of nowhere?" He snorted condescendingly. "I mean - not only does this whopping great structure just _appear _out of thin air, but it's _haunted_ as well? What are the chances of that?"

Harry thought frantically for an explanation. Aha.

"The reason the house appeared out of nowhere is _because_ it's haunted." He cleared his throat. "There's some – er - dark magic built into the foundations, and that _made_ it appear."

Ha, that shut him up.

Draco thought for a few seconds. "Surely the foundations would have been left behind in the place where the house apparated from. So…if the dark magic was in the foundations… then in it's _new_ location, the house wouldn't strictly speaking be magic anymore. _Or_ haunted."

"DRACO!"

"Ok, Ok," Draco resumed his position at Harry's side. "Whose garden?"

"What?"

"You said 'at the bottom of _their_ garden'. Does that mean the garden belongs to both of them?"

"I don't know – yes."

Draco frowned, remembering something. "But you said at the beginning that they lived down the road from each other. How could they have the same garden?" He cocked his head to one side and thought to himself. "Unless -" the Slytherin narrowed his eyes, trying to picture it " - they live in some kind of cul-de-sac, where their houses are arranged in a circular fashion so their gardens _might_ actually be able to connect -"

"Look, FORGET the garden, Ok?"

"But you said -"

"FORGET what I said."

"Well why say it in the first place?" Draco huffed. "Next time give me some _warning_ at least. "Tell me 'Oh by the way, don't bother listening to the next bit of the story because I'm going to ask you to forget it later anyway.'"

Harry rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. _For the love of…. _He didn't think he had the energy for this. "FINE, Gabriel and Sophie live in a quiet cul-de-sac in the middle of a _rainforest_ in Peru and have no houses in their communal or separate gardens, haunted or otherwise. Happy?"

Draco wasn't, but he thought he'd better just leave it. He also thought that this probably wasn't the best time to remind Harry that they'd earlier agreed to move Sophie and Gabriel's road from the _middle_ of the rainforest to the _edge_. He decided instead to inquire about something else that had been bothering him. "Where are their parents?"

"Parents?"

"You know, those things that have children."

"Hilarious, Draco." Harry rolled his eyes. "I meant why do you want to know about their parents?"

"Well, where are they? Why are they letting their children wander unaccompanied into houses that have just _appeared_ overnight, in bottomless gardens -"

"Whoa – who said the garden was bottomless?" Harry frowned. He had thought that the garden situation had been cleared up.

"Well if we stick with the cul-de-sac idea," Draco explained, "and their gardens are actually connected, then strictly speaking there isn't a bottom to either garden. Because the bottom of one would be the top of the other, so to speak." The Slytherin grinned at his cleverness.

"There is such a thing as thinking too much, Draco."

"If you're not going to be serious, then -"

"It's a _fairy-tale_." Harry received a poke in the ribs. "Ok, from now on I will be deadly serious." He adopted a very serious expression to prove it.

Draco grunted. "Good. Carry on."

Harry couldn't for the life of him see where on earth – or where on Peru, he quickly corrected himself, in case Draco was performing Legilimency – this story was going.

He had a sudden flash of inspiration. "The -"

"And don't even _think_ about getting the characters into a ridiculously impossible situation only to end with it all being a dream. Because that will just be _stupid_."

Harry sank dejectedly. There went that flash of inspiration.

"And none of that 'happily ever after' rubbish either."

"You can't just dictate the terms of the story, Draco."

"You don't mean to tell me you _were_ going to end it 'happily ever after'?" Draco's incredulous look said it all. "You were, weren't you?"

"No!" the Gryffindor replied defensively. But spying Harry's small blush, Draco knew he was lying. Harry grinned sheepishly. "I was going to end with it all being a dream."

Draco laughed aloud.

Harry folded his arms in a sulk. "I'd like to see you do better."

Draco yawned lazily. "I would but some guy called Shakespeare stole all my material. I never did find out what happened to him -" He shrugged a shoulder dismissively.

Harry grinned in spite of himself.

Draco leaned in to give Harry an affectionate squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?" Harry cupped one hand behind his ear.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry for being a pain."

"And?"

"_And_, I'm sorry for picking holes in your story."

"_Holes?_ Try _craters_."

Draco groaned loudly. He looked Harry in the eye affectionately. "I don't care if your stories are rubbish." He kissed him on the nose. "I still love you."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Do you call that an apology?"

"It's the best you're going to get."

"That was pathetic."

Draco grinned wickedly. "Ok, try this on for size: Not only are your stories rubbish, but they're full of stereotypes, they never have a proper ending -"

Harry's eyes widened in indignation. "Only because you argue so much that I never get a _chance_ to -"

Draco grinned. He enjoyed provoking the Gryffindor. "Truce?"

Harry smiled. "Agreed." He shifted his position to give Draco a quick kiss on the forehead. "I'm sorry for snapping at you."

"And I'm sorry - that your stories are rubbish."

Harry glared and picked up a pillow. "Once upon a _time_," he belted Draco on the side of the head, "in a _far off land_," this time he hit his stomach, "there was a boy with _no name_ -" the boy called Draco had now picked up his own pillow " - whose prize Quidditch cup got flushed down the toilet because he didn't know when to _shut up_."

"You wouldn't dare!" Draco belted Harry with his bedraggled pillow until the Gryffindor was flat on his back on the bed. With one hand, he deftly pinned Harry's wrists above his head. He grinned infuriatingly, watching his boyfriend wriggling beneath him. Draco lowered his face until his lips were just inches away from Harry's ear. "Just admit that you can't invent a story to save your life and I'll -"

"NEVER!"

In one deft movement, Harry wrapped his legs around the Slytherin's waist and fought for control. But the only child of Lucius Malfoy didn't surrender _that_ easily.

One whispered engorgement charm later, Harry didn't even see the alarmingly hippogriff-sized pillow descending towards him until it was too late.

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The next time Draco felt the urge to hear a story, he just kept it to himself.

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I really hope you enjoyed this! I'd love to hear what you think ). The story I got this idea from, 'There Was Once', is one from my GCSE English Anthology (from 1999) and is well worth a read if you come across it. I can't remember who the author is though!

And remember, Pillow Fight! Follows on from this!


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